PALMDALE – According to the semifinal tally (with 100% of precincts reporting) , incumbent Jim Ledford garnered more than 70% of the votes to claim his 11th term as Mayor of the City of Palmdale.
In the Palmdale Water District race, incumbents Linda Godin (Div. 3) and Raul Figueroa (Div. 4) are behind their challengers Gloria Dizmang and Raul O. Figueroa in two very close races.
The only other incumbent to lose a seat this election is Marcanthony Sanchez, an appointed incumbent for the Palmdale School District.
The following are semifinal official canvass results (with 100% of precincts reporting) for the cities of Palmdale and Lancaster. The Board of Supervisors will declare official results November 22nd, once Vote by Mail (those turned in at voting locations and those received by mail just before Election Night) and provisional ballots voted at the polls are tallied.
Palmdale General Municipal Election – MAYOR
- James Ledford — Votes: 4,545 — 72.15%
- Maggie Campbell — Votes: 1,063 — 16.88%
- Desmond Kester — Votes: 691 — 10.97%
Palmdale Water District, Board of Directors, Division 3 (1 position for election)
- Gloria A. Dizmang — Votes: 1,979 — 56.7%
- Linda J. Godin — Votes: 1,511 — 43.3%
Palmdale Water District, Board of Directors, Division 4 (1 position for election)
- Kathy Mac Laren — Votes: 1,827 — 51.03%
- Raul O. Figueroa — Votes: 1,753 — 48.97%
Antelope Valley Community College District – Governing Board Member (2 positions for election)
- Lew Stults — Votes: 7,091 — 26.24%
- Jack D. Seefus — Votes: 6,776 — 25.07%
- Steve Fox — Votes: 6,329 — 23.42%
- Marginese Streeter — Votes: 3,891 — 14.4%
- Margaret L. Chavez — 2,937 — 10.87%
Antelope Valley Joint Union High School District – Governing Board Member (2 positions for election)
- Jill McGrady — Votes: 9,316 — 37.43%
- Donita J. Winn — Votes: 7,007 — 28.15%
- Kermit Franklin — Votes: 5,743 — 23.07%
- Emmett B. Murrell — Votes: 2,823 — 11.34%
Eastside Union School District – Governing Board Member (2 positions for election)
- Joseph “Joe” Pincetich — Votes: 465 — 37.11%
- Peggy W. Foster — Votes: 460 — 36.71%
- Ronald Lee Taylor, Jr. — Votes: 328 — 26.18%
Palmdale School District – Governing Board Member (2 positions for election)
- Maria G. Molina — Votes: 2,129 — 27.21%
- Robert “Bo” Bynum — Votes: 1,884 — 24.08%
- Warren W. Gatling — Votes: 1,489 — 19.03%
- Marcanthony Sanchez — Votes: 1,271 — 16.25%
- Charles Mike McElfresh — Votes: 1,050 — 13.42%
Westside Union School District – Governing Board Member (2 positions for election)
- Steven P. Demarzio — Votes: 2,584 — 36.38%
- Gwen Farrell — Votes: 2,514 — 35.39%
- Kristin L. Petersen — Votes: 2,005 — 28.23%
Election night results are semifinal official canvass results and should not be considered final official results.
Tiffany says
Judith Fluker, a.k.a “Maggie Campbell”….childish little girl! She is apparently seething because she lost the Mayoral election and now she wants to start her own newspaper to get back at Mayor Ledford, Sandy C., Darren Parker and others by attacking them. She will probably use more church money to do this and attempt to write it off under her 501c3 filing status. She thinks that by spending two years attacking people she lost to, people will suddenly turn and vote her in and make her the new mayor. Here is her crappy newspaper: http://www.wix.com/valley_sentinel/valleysentinel#! -what a joke!
Mark W says
Pffft. Same old.
Gerardo @ latino citizen of Palmdale says
I agree im a palmdale Resident and i was hesitant on going to Vote, I was thinking to myself why should i vote if evertyhing will still be the same after the votes are tallied in. I for sure didn’t vote for Ledford and I dont care for him, because ever since i came to Palmdale back in 1998 he was mayor and he never did anything from there to now to make Palmdale better. As a matter in fact companies are leaving Palmdale and if Ledford would think he would do whatever it will take to keep them here and not leave the city. Example of a major call center in Palmdale leaving Lojack corp.Many employees are residents of Palmdale who will soon be unemployed early next year. We need employeement here in Palmdale not unemployment. But to make things short i voted and well like a lot of my fellow registerd voters who didnt vote, its ok because nothing is going to change. Ledford , congrats and do what the citizens of Palmdale wants not what you want. Fix Palmdale Blvd traffic (hint: Lancaster Blvd is awesome), Jobs, open the kids library, schools, keep grass green in city property (City OF Palmdale Library)…
Matt Keltner says
How exactly is Jim Ledford responsible for Lojack closing its operations there? That sort of thing occurs all of the time. You win some, you lose some.
I agree with you about Lancaster BLVD looking great! It does! And I don’t care what any of the naysayers on here say. Regardless, Jim Ledford cannot be held responsible for how Palmdale Boulevard looks because the majority of it is state property and falls under the authority of CalTRANS (since it part of State Route 138). There were a number of Palmdale residents who were asking the City why it couldn’t do something similar to Lancaster Blvd and this was the answer they gave – and a legitimate one!
Palmdale has a nice mall and a nice retail/restaurant corridor that is easily accessible. Lancaster is developing a distinct downtown retail/restaurant corridor that is a new and fashionable concept. The beauty of the Antelope Valley is that we have differing venues and choices.
Debbie says
We have lived here in Palmdale since 1989 before much was out here, and we think Mr. Ledford has been an amazing mayor! Over the years we have seen Palmdale grow into a vibrant city. Mr. Ledford has brought to this city all the infrastructures we see today such as the Amphitheater,the mall, water park etc. It has been a wonderful family based city to live in. Keep up the good work Mr. Mayor!
William says
I agree. He has done a lot for Palmdale despite several recessions since 1990. Meanwhile, the other city has done landscaping and more landscaping.
Palmdale has built a new City Hall, 2 huge parks on both sides of town, abundant retail on both sides of town, and more restaurants than ever, a brand new hospital, etc. Mayor Ledford has worked hard to get the airport up and running and also the High Speed Rail station in Palmdale and Gerado is fussing about keeping the grass green when the water company raised the rates.
Move to Lancaster Gerado if you don’t like Palmdale. It’s cheaper and the BLVD has nice landscaping that you’ll love.
Matt Keltner says
Yes! Yes! Congratulations! — Now go pick up all of your ugly little election signs that are littering the desert landscape!
John Mlynar says
Actually, Palmdale has a population of about 152,000, and of that somewhere in the neighborhood of 58,000 registered voters. Regardless, one would hope that all Americans would use their most fortunate right to vote and do so each election. The images of the people in Iraq with their ink-stained fingers who voted and risked possibly getting killed for doing so still sticks out in my mind. We here in America take it for granted and it is so sad. For heaven’s sake, you can do it by mail…you don’t even have to go to the polling place!
That said, congrats to all and thank you to everyone who voted.
William says
Meanwhile, republicans in various states pursue the ‘phantom’ voter fraud issue and respond with ‘voter suppression’ legislation. I was at Assemblyman Steve Knight’s town hall meeting back in June where a woman brought up voter fraud and he agreed that it’s a problem.
He then said something about colleges not being able to handle having polls for voting on campus. When I told my friend, he said “Aren’t colleges used to having assemblages of people?” If homeowners are able to handle voters in their garages,…… Anyway, Knight is part of what’s wrong. BTW Mitt Romney was investigated for using his son’s basement as an address for voting in Mass. while owning homes in La Jolla and New Hampshire. Now, that’s fraud, the kind republicans like to ignore.
Erick Byarushengo says
I agree. In fact, if you were to look at stats of every single democracy in the world, America sits dead last when it comes to turnout. It’s sad because I’m reminded how back when this country was founded, there were three requirements to vote. You had to be a man, you had to be white, and you had to own land. And in some states, you had to own up to 50 acres of land. Even over the last hundred years, they moved the voting age from 21 down to 18, we had women’s suffrage, and the voting rights act.
I can’t help but get frustrated when people only vote in Presidential elections. First, it shows how little they know how little authority the President has. To me, local elections are more important because it’s the local government that’s the closest to you. It’s because of low turnout elections that every vote in local election’s really count because of how few people actually vote. You would think that close to 59,000 voters would care about voting in the Palmdale Mayor race. You’d also think that close to 39,000 people would care to vote for the Palmdale Water District.
I can understand people finding it not important to vote in the school board races. Because they don’t see why that would effect them. But you would think that the parents of the kids would care to vote. Or even students currently enrolled at the college.
I feel like I have written too much about this, but it’s really frustrating. I have voted in every election ever since I have been eligible to vote. But now I just vote by mail now. Which leads to a whole different point that you don’t really have an excuse not to vote because you can easily become a permanent vote by mail voter.
Jo says
Well said Erick, and I agree totally. American’s deserve their lose of right’s if for no other reason then they are to lazy to educate themselves and vote. At the same time our troops are bleeding for us overseas! Truly a shame.
Miffed American says
Congrats to Lew,Jack,Gwen,Steven,Jill and Donita you all will do a rock rolling job. I was shocked to see though the low turn out in Palmdale for elections. It’s a sign of apathy and that people just don’t care anymore. Sombody has got to turn this around by showing they can make it worth voting once again. Ledford got 5000 plus votes out of how many residents?
Jo says
Maybe if Lancaster incorporated our elections in with the county and state, people would vote! Of course that won’t happen, as Lancaster wouldn’t be able to manipulate their elections. Or spend the $100,000’s that it cost to run one in April.